ABSTRACT
Without some appreciation of the historical background to the colossal changes of the twentieth and twenty-fi rst centuries, it is very diffi cult to make sense of what is happening in China today. The historical legacy, which continues to infl uence attitudes in contemporary China, includes: the Opium War and the impact of the West in the nineteenth century; peasant rebellions; cultural nationalism which was in part a response to challenges posed by the West; the abortive Republican experiment of 1912-13 and the collapse into balkanised regional regimes under the rule of warlords; the military occupation by Japan during the Second World War; Civil War between Communists and Nationalists; the rise of Mao Zedong and the radical experiments of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Some of these events are still fresh in the minds of the older generation and are also familiar to the younger age group from studies at school and in popular culture, although some may wish to reject the political heritage of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.
